36 Million Reasons To Walk4Hearing

Thursday, April 26, 2012
- by Betty Proctor

Walk4Hearing chair Betty Proctor, far left and kickoff coordinator Bea Lyons, far right, presented Clarity folks Jonathan Gray, business unit manager, second from left, Gary Moore, national accounts manager, second from right and Angela Williams, Clarity Crew team captain with a certificate for their annual support of the Walk4Hearing. This marks Clarity’s fourth year as a Walk4Hearing sponsor.

In a little less than three weeks on May 12, hundreds of Chattanooga residents, visitors from surrounding cities and states, as well as sponsor representatives from across the country will meet at Chattanooga State Community College for the 4th annual Walk4Hearing along the Chattanooga Riverwalk in support of the more than 36 million Americans with hearing loss. Caleb Massengale and Timothy Blevins, Marion County children with hearing loss, will lead walkers to the Riverwalk following the opening ceremony.

Registration for the event begins at 9 a.m. All activities and food will be available beginning at 8:30 a.m. There will be free breakfast foods and beverages; face painting, balloon sculpting and musical entertainment by Magical Music Machine; a bounce house, popcorn, and coloring activities for children as well as a visit by Peaches the Clown, Chatooine and Mos Nooga (live local Star Wars characters).

Walk monies totaling more than $18,000 have funded community ventures that support programs and services for people with hearing loss including live theater, college scholarships, emergency/disaster funds, children’s camp, deaf-blind camp, looping, convention scholarships and captioning of local events. The chapter was awarded a “Best Use of Funds” award from the national office of Hearing Loss Association of America in 2011.

With 22 teams and 133 walkers registered to date, the Walk4Hearing has reached 47 percent of its $30,000 goal, or $13,980. The current top five fund-raising teams include the Dalton League of Women Voters, Chattanooga State Foundation, Clarity Crew, HLA Knoxville and Twitchell’s Gang. Current top three fundraisers include Ann Schide, Winnie Hargis and Jeff Bonnell.

National sponsors representing CapTel, MedEl, CaptionCall, and Cochlear Americas will exhibit as vendors, while Beltone has a local team.

Local residents can see a banner and table tents promoting the Walk4Hearing on display in the food court at Hamilton Place Mall through early May.

The Chattanooga Walk4Hearing ceremony opens at 10 a.m. on May 12. Opening ceremony speaker will be Anne Schulman of Caption Associates LLC. Recognition of Walk sponsors, top teams, and walkers precede the presentation of Hamilton Relay’s 2012 Better Hearing & Speech Month Recognition Award. Full accessibility is a focus of the Walk and would not be complete without captioning services, remote CART on smart phones, and sign language interpreters provided by volunteers Linda Hershey, Jodi Upton, Dan and Beverly Mayfield. Chattanooga State’s Curt Aukerman, EMT/RN, volunteers his time as the Walk medical resource person on site.

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